Version 5.3 Political Legitimacy and European Monetary Union: Contracts, Constitutionalism and the Normative Logic of Two-Level Games

The crisis of the Eurozone has severely tested the political authority of the European Union (EU). Questions of normative legitimacy are raised by the crisis, both because the EU in general is a normative order and because the construction of economic and monetary union rested upon an explicit normative theory that stressed the importance of the depoliticisation of money. However, this theory neglected the normative logic of the two-level game that is implicit in EMU. It also neglected problems arising from the burdens of judgement implicit in the design of any constitutional order. By contrast, we contend that any reconstruction of the EU’s economic constitution has to pay attention p to reconciling a European monetary order with the legitimacy of Member State governance. The EU requires a two-level contract to meet this standard. The Member States must treat each other as equals and be representative of and accountable to their citizens on an equitable basis. These criteria entail that the EU’s political legitimacy requires a form of demoicracy that we call ‘republican intergovernmentalism’. Only such rules as could be acceptable as the product of a political constitution among the peoples of Europe can ultimately meet the required standards of political legitimacy.